Mormon Marriage Equality

Are men and women partners or competitors? What about in marriage? Do men feel threatened by wives with successful careers?

Are Mormon marriages more equal or less equal than other marriages? Do Mormon women feel that they are taken seriously and treated as equals by their husbands? Are they encouraged to follow their dreams? Do they find their work (whether at home or in the workplace) meaningful and rewarding? In the give and take of marriage, are men and women giving and taking fairly?

I recently finished reading Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In. In the book, she talks about several things we can do to help women achieve their potential and to help men and women feel more equal and personally satisfied, within their personal lives and in the workplace. This list includes things like:

As women “lean in” more at work, men must also learn to “lean in” more at home. (This was very similar to what I heard Ursula Burns, CEO of Xerox, say in a Women’s Conference, that women are leaving vacant spaces as they join the workforce, and those vacant spaces must be filled.)

Sheryl Sandberg advocates more modern marriages in which partners work together rather than relying on assumptions and outdated norms that limit marital communication. Studies shared in the book illustrate that men in “traditional” marriages are “nice guy misogynists” in the workplace. They view women as positive (using words like nurturing, moral, and ethical), but they also view women as disruptive to the workplace and not suited to its rigors. (This reminded me of a comment one of the elders made in my mission; fortunately, he was an outlier). Men who hold these views perpetuate policies that discourage women from participating. They are also at greater risk for being fired if they exhibit discriminatory behaviors and attitudes, which puts their financially dependent wives at risk.

Women are unlikely to succeed in the workplace if they are not encouraged or supported. This can also apply to finishing one’s education. Sheryl made the analogy of a marathon in which the crowd is shouting to the men, “You can do it! You’re almost there! Keep going!” but to the women, the crowd is shouting, “You don’t have anything to prove! You don’t need to finish! Aren’t you tired? Nobody will think less of you if you give up now!”

She also talked about the value of choice and that parents of either sex who choose to stay at home with children are doing valuable work and also deserve support. Of course, that doesn’t mean that a working spouse should be exempt from responsibilities in the home. The home is the responsibility of both parents as partners. They should decide jointly how to meet those obligations.

Women and men both need to push for policies that enable work-life balance for both men and women. E. Cook said the same in his conference talk. When workplaces stigmatize balance or value face time in the office over results, it hurts everyone.

Because she advocates for more women to lean in (to the workplace), she also suggests couples should consider the cost of child care as an investment in future earning potential, similar to paying for college; as she points out (and backs with statistics), women can never make up for the years of experience lost after college, even if they have pedigreed degrees, which then leads to less challenging work in lower paying jobs; that disadvantage makes it easier for women to quit.

In light of the book’s suggestions, I became curious about Mormon marriages. What are the dynamics within actual Mormon marriages, not the ideals so frequently touted? Do our marriages follow the norms of society in general or are they different? Are we women encouraged to follow our dreams? Are we women given support and partnership to do so? What are the limits of that support? Do both partners communicate well or rely on assumptions or gender stereotypes to divide labor? I decided to conduct a brief survey to find out how married Mormon women viewed these factors within their marriages. There were a total of 135 responses.

How we limit choices through discouragement; only one category is positive: men with good careers.

Let’s start with a few demographics. Of the women I polled:

48% are stay-at-home mothers; 4% of all the women polled have husbands who are stay-at-home dads. These numbers are fairly consistent with current national averages.

17% of women are “high earners,” making greater than 1.5 times what their spouses earn.

Next, I asked these women a series of yes / no questions about their marriage. The questions are subjective about the quality and nature of communication, division of labor, child care, and job or work satisfaction for both spouses. Because these statements are subjective, a few caveats are important. Words like “fair” and equal” are not defined for respondents, so this is based on their perception of what is fair given their own specific set of circumstances. For example, “fair” certainly doesn’t have to be a 50/50 split. If one spouse works full time outside the home, the other one may carry more workload within the home, particularly during the working hours. Each couple has to make these decisions within their own partnership. The questions I asked related to how these women felt, and in some cases, how they felt about their husband’s situation. Their husbands’ answers may have differed.

Equality

First, let’s see how women viewed the equality in their marriages. 94% of women agreed with the statement: “My husband sees me as an equal partner.” This percentage holds true across all sub-categories: SAHMs, women working part-time, women working full-time (slightly wavering to 91% for “high earners”, bot not a statistically significant difference). Similarly, between 90-91% of women agreed that “We make all important decisions together.” The only group with a significantly lower agreement with this statement (only 80% agreed) was women working full-time who are not primary earners. Are women taking a hit for spending time outside the home that doesn’t contribute on par financially? Is this a double whammy of the wage gap (pay women less, and then treat them less equally at home also)? Or is it indicative of women valuing different things in the workplace, deliberately choosing more satisfying work over lucrative work, but men disagreeing with these choices?

Are we encouraging women or telling them to quit the race?

Next, I asked a series of questions about the types of encouragement women feel they get from their spouses. Women in general (85%) agreed that “My husband appreciates my ambition.” This agreement ran along economic lines, though, with only 78% of SAHMs but 91% of high earners agreeing with the statement. If ambition pays, women feel more encouraged to be ambitious. However, breaking into that earning potential can feel insurmountable for some SAHMs, only 68% of whom said “My husband would adjust his schedule to give me more career opportunity.” Interestingly, the highest percentage of respondents to that question were among low-earning full-time women at 90%. Unsurprisingly, only 43% of SAHMs said “My husband would relocate for my career,” although 72% of working women agreed with the statement. Even among high earners, agreement to this statement spiked at 83%.

Communication

SAHMs had the highest perception of their marital communication, followed closely by full-time secondary earners (90%); 91% of them stated that “My husband and I talk openly about out daily frustrations; we support each other.” The lowest reporting group for marital communication was in the primary earner (76%) and high earner category (78%). Perhaps husbands and wives whose days differ more greatly feel more inclined to discuss their day. Interestingly, this communication doesn’t seem to result in feelings of empathy. Only 71% of SAHMs claimed “I understand what my husband’s day is like” compared to all other categories that were in the 80-85% range. The lowest scoring statement of the entire survey shows women don’t feel understood, perhaps due to self-reporting. Only 46% of SAHMs believed that “My husband understands what my day is like.” This statement didn’t divide neatly along working/not working lines as only 45% of secondary earning full-time workers stated that their husbands understood what their day was like. The highest group was part-time workers, 64% of whom believed their husbands understood their day.

Sharing Workload

Do we encourage women superficially, only to pull away the football later through inflexible policies, lack of support, and lower pay?

A similar percentage of women in all categories agreed with the statement “My husband and I decide how to share responsibility regardless of gender norms,” with the lowest groups being SAHMs (78%), primary earners (79%) and high earners (78%). The highest reporting group was full-time secondary earners (85%), followed by part-timers (82%). These results were similar to answers to the statement “My husband and I share child care responsibilities fairly,” but with SAHMs rating it higher (82%) than women who were primary earners (79%) or high earners (78%). Some comments indicated that women who were high earners felt they did not pull their equal share in child care or domestic chores, so that could explain some of the low results in this group. Again, the full-time secondary earners felt most in accord with the statement (85% agreed).

The biggest bone of contention centered around division of domestic labor. Only 49% of SAHMs agreed that “My husband and I share household chores fairly.” This rose to 70% for high earning wives, but was low across all other working categories (59% for all working women): part-time workers (55%), full-time secondary earners (60%), and even primary earners (61%). Perhaps the higher results among high earning women was due to not considering the state of the house as part of their success, high travel schedules, enough money to pay for domestic labor, or some high earning wives that have non-working spouses.

Quality of Work Life

Lastly, I asked women to report on the quality of their own work life and their husband’s as they perceive it. Interestingly, in nearly every category, women reported higher levels of satisfaction and sense of reward than they attributed to their husbands. One notable exception was that 82% of SAHMs felt that “The work my husband does is challenging and a good use of his talents,” although only 68% of SAHMs agreed that “The work my husband does is often rewarding.” SAHMs overall painted the rosiest picture of their husband’s work life, either because their husbands truly are more successful and happy at work, or because of lack of understanding between spouses doing very dissimilar work, or because the model depends on a belief in the husband’s satisfaction with it. Or are men simply rewarded more than women in the workplace because the workplace was designed by men, for men, and men are taught from birth that it’s where their reward is to be found?

I couldn’t help but think of the Upton Sinclair quote: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” Contrast these results with how SAHMs reported feeling about their own work. Only 37% of them agreed that “The work I do challenges me and is a good use of my talents,” and only 46% of them felt that “The work I do is often rewarding.” That’s a lot of self-reported personal sacrifice; if their husbands are also not loving their jobs, is it really worth it?

Because men are physically stronger, they have an easier time carrying bigger bags of money.

Among all working women, evaluation of the husband’s job satisfaction was much lower. Only 59% agreed that “The work my husband does is challenging and a good use of his talents.” This was the highest for part-time workers (64%), but the lowest for secondary earner full-time workers (50%). Results for “The work my husband does is often rewarding” were low across every category of working woman (46% overall). The lowest group, again, were the secondary-earner full-time workers (40% agreement), and the highest group were the part-time workers (50%). Is this indicative that these women are working at least partly because they are not in the position of entitlement that the SAHMs are in, relying on husbands who are satisfied and rewarded well in their jobs? Or does it simply illustrate that working women have a more realistic perception of their husbands’ job satisfaction?

Turning to how working women view their own job satisfaction, these results were higher, but none were near the rosy view SAHMs portrayed of their husbands’ satisfaction. 67% of working women said “The work I do challenges me and is a good use of my talents.” This was highest for high earners (70%) by a long shot. The lowest agreement was among part-time workers (55%). Interestingly, only 64% of women stated that “The work I do is often rewarding,” and this was actually lowest for primary earners (58%). 65% of secondary earners agreed with the statement and 64% of part-timers did. Perhaps this indicates that some women are deliberately choosing less challenging or lucrative careers that they feel have intrinsic rewards that merit them working. Or perhaps expectations are simply lower among these workers than among the higher-paid women, which would follow the percentages of female workers in their category.

Conclusion

These results surprised me in a few ways. The biggest surprise was that the percentages followed U.S. national averages. Despite the church’s advocacy for traditional marriage and women staying home, in reality, we seem to be both in and of the world. The factors driving these trends are stronger than rhetoric; this also probably means that for believing members it just amps up the guilt factor. A few other observations I had about this data:

Most women are OK with how child care is divided, regardless of their working status. Because I didn’t ask men this question, I wonder if they would be equally satisfied or would like to spend more time with their children.

All women are dissatisfied with how domestic chores are shared. The answer seems fairly straightforward: men need to lean in a bit more when it comes to routine chores like house cleaning, laundry, shopping, cooking, and doing the dishes. These chores are not viewed as fun, challenging or rewarding by anyone, so it’s not fair that one sex bears the burden disproportionately. Again, open discussion about division of labor is the best course, not assuming who is responsible to do what.

What exactly does the data about quality of work life mean? I can think of several possible interpretations, and perhaps all of them hold some piece of the puzzle:

Do men in traditional marriages have a happier work life or do their wives just believe they do? Is it happier because of the support of a non-working spouse or is the non-working spouse a privilege of the husband’s career success?

Are working women able to see through the myth of the happy worker or are their husbands actually less happy in their work life? Is that because their wives are working and in some cases out-earning them, or are their wives working because their husbands’ careers haven’t been as rewarding and a second income is needed?

What conclusions do you draw from this data? What new questions does it raise about Mormon marriages? What other surveys would you like to see? How does your marriage compare to these results? Do these results imply that traditional marriages have key advantages over modern marriages or that those stereotypes have harmful, unintended consequences?

Where did you source your women correspondents from and how did you select them? How widely distributed are they across the North American geography? The sample size is problematic for drawing any real conclusions. The data offers a glimpse into some slice of Mormon women but it’s hard to extrapolate that out to any broader conclusions.

OD, I did not gather age demographics, but participants were married Mormon women with children, mostly in their 20s, 30s and 40s with a few older. Most were in the US, but some were not. Again, I did not gather demographics. I tend to think age would drive some interesting differences, but I doubt geography would. Perhaps I will do a second version for a broader category. I would also like to survey men, but getting men to respond is even more difficult than women! Because of the small sample sizes, many of the results are likely directional, yet some of the large differences are certainly within reasonable confidence levels.

You write “All women are dissatisfied with how domestic chores are shared. The answer seems fairly straightforward: men need to lean in a bit more…”

Or maybe women need to lean in a bit less? Household chores are unvalued by many men precisely because they actually do have less value (compared to interacting with children, spouse, friends, and coworkers). Don’t blame your husband if he thinks it’s not worth his time to clean the house: maybe it’s not worth your time either.

Dan, that’s certainly another way to address it. Renegotiating standards for cleanliness does help. I know in my own marriage I had to learn a good dose of clutter blindness to cope. There aren’t enough hours in the day to stay on top of it when nobody else cares.

I was a SAHM for years, until my children were all in school. I now work full time as a high school teacher. I had to go back to school in order to finish my teaching certificate. My husband was always completely supportive of what I wanted to do, even when he was called to be the bishop right before I was about to begin my first year as a teacher. He likes what he does (podiatrist) but I actually think that I LOVE what I do better than he does. So, maybe the results came out the way that they do, because I got to “choose” where I worked, based on what I wanted to do, and not based on how much money I was earning. But he’s kind of “stuck” in his career, because once we invested all that money and time in him becoming a podiatrist, he became the primary wage earner and we relied on his income to pay our bills (not that he hates it, but he just doesn’t love it like I do).

Interesting, and I think, important results from this survey. It would be interesting to see the results of an even broader survey in the future. Great job!

Dan, interesting point about “leaning out.” Maybe in the modern world we live in, we should readjust some of our expectations.

Heather, I agree outsiders may view equality within Mormon marriages differently. Still, should we be worried about how outsiders view things? Is how outsiders view our relationships the reality of out relationships or are our own perceptions closer to the truth? Maybe reality is somewhere in between. I don’t know….I think it is an important thought though.

We like to think about ourselves as being separate from the world around us. If anything, surveys such as this show we are not.

Whether it be in the workplace, home, society, or the church, I think women’s perspectives are equally important as men’s and should be treated as such.

I agree it might not matter how outsiders see our marriage. But maybe it does. For the record I don’t even really mean non-Mormons seeing Mormon marriages but just anyone outside the marriage. I guess I was just thinking about marriages I see that I definitely don’t see as equal and I was wondering would they self -report as being equal. I think surveys like this are hard because are people really going to admit to having an unequal marriage?

When I looked at the results I found something interesting though. 94% of women said their husbands saw them as equal partners but only about 50% said that they divided domestic chores fairly. That doesn’t square with me. I would venture to say from this survey and just from my knowledge of my acquaintances that a lot of women are feeling unhappy with how labor is divided in their marriage but they wouldn’t go so far as to say that their marriage was unequal. But that’s what I would think of their marriage.

My father-in-law talks all the time about how he and his wife are equal, but what he means by that is that he takes her needs and wants into consideration when he makes all the decisions. He is very proud of that because he used to basically just ignore her needs and wants. However, he still decides what she needs and doesn’t pay much attention to her input. Oh, and he helps out in the kitchen more than he used to now they are retired. Although she is much happier now than when I first met them 15 years ago, from the outside, I would definitely not say that they are equal. On the other hand, he thinks that my marriage relationship is unequal because my husband doesn’t make all the decisions, so I’m hoarding more power than I’m entitled to.

How outsides view my marriage tends to be based on how they see see the world in general. I can’t do much about that. I am generally happy and so most people end up appreciating that or atleast a grudgingly admitting that it does work for me. I view housework differently. It is not something to be avoided. I wonder if the change needed is not that more women lean in to careers, but instead more people recognize the value of housework. I love the article http://magazine.byu.edu/?act=view&a=151 . I feel like emphasizing career gives too much power to money as to what makes work valuable. As long as children are born to. Women there will be at least a time in which it works best for women to be home…housework will be …atleast we forth at time..mostly a woman’s role. Of course that may also be thetime when she needs help despite being home more.

Ironically having a big family which some people we as a sign ofa patriarchy…can inspire a man to help more i n any necessary duty. That’s how it’s worked for us. It’s more of an all hands on deck thing because there is just so much to be done. He was raised in an extremely traditional home…famous stories of his dad never changing a diaper and possibly starving if no one made him a meal. But my husband has just recognized the need and done what needs to be done…whether that’s dinner, laundry, the lawn…or whatever. With 10 children there is plenty of need to go around…he cannot rationalize that I can do it all.

100 years ago work was work. We didn’t classify it by whether it earned money or not. Cooking, in my mind, is just as important as making money, or buying food….all of that brings home bacon. I’m tired of the world assuming that because green pieces of paper are associated with some parts of that process it’s more special.

Sociology wise..leaning into parenthood would have a more beneficial affect on society than leaning in to moneymaking.

I tend to agree with this idea that leaning in to parenthood is vital for both parents, similar to what E. Cook was saying at conference, whether they work for pay or not. We all work for pay to pay for our family’s needs, not to avoid our families or ignore the home. His point was complementary to Ms. Sandberg’s, though, at least the way I read her book. She is advocating more flexibility for women in the workplace (which creates it for men also), and more partnership in the home which creates stronger marriages.

For me it’s not even a matter of equality. I think that term is too hard to define anyway. I think it is about both people in the marriage feeling happy with the way they do things. Personally I just know too many women who don’t feel happy. There probably are a lot of men, as well, but I don’t get in those kind of conversations with them.

I love the idea of leaning into parenthood. I personally see a lot more of this with my generation but I still come across those men who see watching their own children as babysitting.

“I still come across those men who see watching their own children as babysitting” Ack! This kills me. I was going to dinner with some of my Aussie team members, and I was told one of the male managers couldn’t be there because he was babysitting. I said, “Oh, that’s nice. Whose kids is he babysitting?” Then it was clarified they were his own. I said, “That’s not babysitting. That’s PARENTING.”

Did you ask the women if they were working because they want to or because they need to contribute to the family finances? I would imagine that one reason for the SAHMs reporting higher job satisfaction among their husbands is that their husbands might have higher paying, better jobs. I think it would be useful to collect demographic data such as education level. My ward has a lot of working women, but one reason for that is that I live in a more blue collar area where one income doesn’t cut it to meet basic necessities in a lot of cases. So, we have a high percentage of two earner families, but I wouldn’t necessarily say that many of the husbands have fulfilling careers. A lot of the wives are nurses and teachers, and I do think they enjoy their work. I would imagine that they would report more job satisfaction than their husbands.

I would be interested in taking your survey if you expand it. I’ve had an interesting experience returning to the workforce after 13 years as a SAHM. Technically I still am a SAHM, but I now work 20-30 hours a week (primarily) from home as a financial analyst. It has been really eye-opening how hard balancing work and family is. Even with my husband stepping in to help out tons more (getting the kids ready for school so I can sleep in after staying up late to finish a project or doing some of the shopping when I give him a list or cleaning up at home more), I am surprised at how hard it still is to balance everything. And it’s harder for him, too, to maintain his workload at work while participating more at home. I would probably say that I have a very equal marriage, very high communication, great sharing of the workload, and very high quality of worklife for both my husband and I – but the nitty gritty of getting everything done everyday is hard, and both of us are exhausted. I think there’s this myth of having it all.

For example, in the “high earner” category, it would be helpful to know what that means. Some of the surprising results from high earner women would make sense if their husbands made $20K. That means a high earner wife could make $30K, right? I hear “high earner”, and I have a mental picture of what that means, but it likely could be something quite different when talking about lower earning couples. I think that kind of data would paint a better picture before drawing conclusions from the data.

I am always amazed at your energy. Thanks for doing this. Lots of interesting results to chew on. I wish we could have more discussions like this within our ward communities where we begin with the premise that equality is an ideal and then do the mormony thing and examine the gap between our current state, the ideal and how to get a bit closer to bridging it. Howevever, when it comes to equality in marriage I see a lot more presumptive statements that “yes our marriage is equal” thereby obviating the need to examine equality closely. I think both my wife and I would agree that we have a great marriage filled with love, respect and commitment. However, I think we struggle with achieving equality. Equality is particularly hard to achieve in a one-income earner model due to the natural consequence of economic dependency which results. There are ways to mitigate it to a significant degree but you have to work hard on it and even then you can’t totally. In any case, I do think the really high self-reported equality scores are as much as about as what the women want to believe as reality (and this is where an outside observer might have some value). The fact is that 91% of Mormon marriages (or marriages in any subgroup) aren’t equal in a real objective sense (and NO I don’t mean equality must equal sameness! please for the love of all that is holy don’t accuse me of that). However, I would believe that 91% of your survey sample might be in marriages where both partners hold equality within marriage as an ideal and believe that both partners are actively working to achieve it. And that is a great, wonderful place to start!

rah: ” Equality is particularly hard to achieve in a one-income earner model due to the natural consequence of economic dependency which results. There are ways to mitigate it to a significant degree but you have to work hard on it and even then you can’t totally.”
True, and I would guess I am very lucky in that, whilst I am a SAHM, my husband and I both have separate bank accounts, his salary is split half and half between the two of us, and then all household expenses divided between us. I imagine that arrangement to be rare. But it does mean, that although I am economically dependent, I don’t feel dependent. We both have our own savings, and I don’t have to ask for permission for everything I spend.

That is great! I think it is those types of experiences and practices that I wish we would share in our church meetings when we talk about how to work toward equality. I would love to hear how other families try and do it. No one way will be right for everyone but there is so much to gain by hearing others perspectives and experience. So useful!

Things that have been important in our family is making sure we had really, really good life insurance on me (the earner) even when it was difficult. We considered as sacred as tithing. My wife is the primary money manager (partially because she is good at it but also because we have felt that it would feel way to unequal otherwise. I get really uncomfortable when I see families where one spouse not only makes all the money but also is the one that controls the finances (things like giving a wife an allowance or even just the wife who is happy outsourcing “that stuff” to her husband). But that is us. I have heard of Mormon couples that have done all sorts of interesting things. And of course, income/economic dependence isn’t the only source of potentially problematic inequality in a marriage. A very wise branch president who knew us very well counselled my wife when we were making the decision about her schooling that “knowing us our marriage would suffer if our educational attainment became too unequal”. That was enough to convince her to go back to the finish her degree at the expensive school I was at when the opportunity presented itself even though it meant quite a bit more debt in our young marriage. Now that I have gone back again for a PhD, we again feel that psychic and emotional strain of educational inequality.We are actively working on addressing it. Every couple is different but sharing is so valuable.

rah, her posts on fMh are some of my favourite, I can get that she’d want/need to study more. I’d got all my education out of the way before marrying, so it was my husband playing catchup for a while. We both studied engineering, so we have that to share, and his CEng is seen as the same level as my PhD. I think the finance stuff works for us because we both have similar views on spending and saving. Also, being Japanese, he was raised with the traditional expectation that the wife has control of the finances, and alots him spending money, so it’s win win really.
I agree that many of the discussions at church are so much the same narrow viewpoint. It would be so refreshing to hear more.

i´m an electrical engineer and a mormon !! i feel like i was brainwashed all my life, i work among men all the time, equality? it´s a joke in this church !! they have bully me for my career, all the freaky time, telling me that i should have kids and stay at home, even my sisters keeps telling me that i´m disrespectful to good because of my career of choice and they keep asking me about why i haven´t get marry and i just tell them i haven´t found the right guy and i get more bully… i found my boys and girls (young boys and girls that work for me ) a new family they look for me anytime they need me, and i will always be there for them, to teach them, guide them, and protect them, god gave me a gift so i will embrace it and now i see the real side of this church… i used to feel like i was doing something wrong .. but no anymore i feel its wrong to go to church every Sunday and let them make me feel bad about something i love and am good at!!

Some members from my church and christian have closed the door for me to get better jobs, i have a lot of knowledge, and experience that every time i go to leave my CV they tell me that those jobs are for MEN and in the post says men and women, so i had to leave my city and start all over, because of their discrimination, its painful, and horrible, i even had a boss who was a christian who used to tell me that aint place for me in that company because of my gender, and he used to threat me awful, hes was kicked out after he kicked me out, for discrimination and i knew he beats his wife and children, he was always calling names like lesbo and other stuff to me and other girls, always saw us like we could not handle it, and i know other members of my church that cheats on wife, and or discriminates at work.

I can tell you there is no equality on this church, and i can bet neither at home, my mom and dad are great they raised 5 children and they are amazing professional parents, and never let us see what they were going through with others members. .. your are the best….

You should look for how many men gets kicked out of work because of discrimination in any religion.

Kulturblog

Time to update Susan’s post from August of 07. “They say that these are not the best of times, But they’re the only times I’ve ever known. And I believe there is a time for meditation In cathedrals of our own.” -Billy Joel, Summer Highland Falls

NOTE: This is an essay I wrote as an undergraduate at the University of Utah almost thirty years ago. I am republishing it here as a remembrance of my favorite professor, Mark Strand, upon the occasion of his passing. Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live… […]